Gabi - 9 month check-up

Gabi had her 9 month check-up today and is doing great. She weighs 16 pounds, 6 ounces (11%) and is 27 inches long (30%). She is working very hard on crawling and pushes herself backwards quite well now. She still has no teeth but we see them coming and it shouldn't be long now. She is still a talker and rivals Alex in who can talk the most during the day. She is getting along great with her big brother and loves to watch him and laugh with him. It is fun to see the two interact with each other. We can't wait until she gets moving and hopefully starts sleeping better.

I went back in time to see what Alex was doing at 9 months and at this time in his life he was creeping, not crawling and weighed in at 16 pounds, 1 ounce. We think that Gabi is so chunky compared to Alex but she only weighs 5 ounces more.

Gabriella - 6 months old

Gabi had her 6 month check-up today. Everything went very well. She weighs 14 pounds, 11 ounces (25%) and is 26 inches long (50%). She had a great time with us in Sedona and learned to sit on her own (probably because for the first time she didn't have gigantic, bulky diapers on) and was a champ with all the hiking we did.

Alex enjoyed his time with the grandparents, as he always does, and is finally adjusting back to life as normal. He has turned into quite the chatterbox and has a running dialogue about anything and everything every waking moment. No wonder he falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.

Rolling over

Today Gabi rolled over for the first time. She has been trying very hard for the last few weeks to roll over from her back to her stomach and she got very close. Today I put her on her stomach in her crib and she rolled over to her back in a matter of seconds, very easily. I know she will enjoy her new skill.

Alex and Gabriella

The holiday season is over and I now have time to log these important stats (since I am far too lazy to write them in a baby book). Back in November Alex had his three year check up. He weighed in at a whopping 29.6 pounds and is 3 feet tall. This puts him in the 20% for both height and weight. He also had is first dentist visit but he freaked out and wouldn't let them touch is teeth. Somehow in the two seconds that the dentist did look at his teeth he determined he had no cavities. Yeah for Alex.

Gabriella had her 4 month check up today and she now weighs 12 pounds, 14 ounces and is 23 3/4 inches long. This puts her in the 25% for both height and weight. Other than her first cold of her life, Gabi is doing very well. She is very happy and is always smiling. She loves to sit up but still falls over on her face quite often. She is pushing up very high on her stomach and probably isn't far away from rolling over.

Gabriella - Two months old

Gabriella had her two month check up today. Everything is going great. She weighs 10 pounds, 3 ounces and is 21 1/2 inches long. She is in the 26th percentile for weight, which seems huge compared to her brother. She got a few shots and turned beet red as a result. She calmed down quickly but has not been a happy camper today.

We are off to our first trip to Portland this weekend. Hopefully Gabi does as well in the car as she did on her first flight.

Gabriella week two

Gabriella had her two week check up yesterday. She now weighs 6 pounds, 13 ounces and is doing great. She now gets a break from doctor's visits and doesn't have to return until she is 2 months old. She is still eating well and sleeping a lot. She has a few times she is awake during the day and is enjoying a little tummy time with her brother who likes to talk to her and make her turn her head.

Gabriella's first doctor's appointment

On Tuesday, September 7th Gabi had her first visit with the doctor. She left the hospital weighing 6 pounds and 3 days later had gained 3 ounces. The doctor says Gabi looks very healthy and she did great with the doctor. So far she is a very quiet baby and cries only when she gets her diaper changed. She sleeps a lot during the day and likes to keep mom and dad awake at night, hopefully this will change soon.

Gabriella Elizabeth Stern

On Friday, September 3rd we welcomed Gabriella Elizabeth Stern into the world. She was born via c-section at 5:42 PM weighing 6 pounds, 8 ounces and measuring 19 3/4 inches long with a full head of dark brown hair. Mommy and baby did great after the surgery and everyone rested nicely in the hospital. On Sunday evening everyone got to go home. Alex is enjoying his baby sister and Nana and Rob are taking good care of everyone.

Maui continued

Alex and Grandma hiking at dragon's teeth. It was very windy and mom lost her hat several times.
Alex with Papa and his infamous funny face.
Alex and Dad at dinner. One of the few meals where Alex had a smile on his face.
Alex propped on a rock at dragon's teeth. He really enjoyed exploring all the rocks and even tried to take one home. We told him that was bad luck.

Maui

Last week we were in Maui with the grandparents and had a great time. We dreaded the 6 hour flight with a toddler on our lap but somehow managed to survive. The weather was great, Alex really enjoyed the beach and ocean and we had lots of good food. Now we are back in the cold, wet weather of Seattle.

Alex is turning 2 in just over a week and I can't believe how grown up he is. He is talking up a storm now and trying so hard to communicate with us. He loves to sing in the car and definitely knows what he does and does not like.

Pumpkin Patch

Last weekend we took Alex to the pumpkin patch for the first time. He had a great time. We got to feed farm animals, go through a maze and pick pumpkins. We get three pumpkins. A small one for Alex, a medium one for Jess and a bigger one for Rob.

Pictures and a Halloween preview

Here are some new pictures since it's been a while.

Alex having lunch with his friend Hayden who was hanging out with us for the day.
Alex is going to be Tigger for Halloween. Here's a nice preview as we were trying to teach him to say Trick or Treat. Not very successful yet.

Alex was making this face a lot for about a week. It's like he was squeezing as hard as he could with his mouth wide open. We called it his funny face and he made the face every time we said that.

Fun at daycare

Olivia told him a great joke and Alex thinks it is hilarious

Alex loves head, shoulder, knee and toes.

Go Huskies!

On Saturday, Alex and I went to Husky Stadium to watch the football team practice and scrimmage. We left Mom at home for a guys day out. Alex had a great time as we got to watch from the sidelines. He was so excited that I often had to keep him from running onto the field. He realized that he's not big enough yet to play so he did some practicing by hitting the blocking sleds and running through some other drill equipment that was sitting on the sideline.

Best of all, Alex learned how to cheer for his favorite team. When I say "Go Huskies!", Alex says "Go Hussies!". Well, they are not Hussies, but I'd say that's pretty good for now.

Alex Update

Hello

I hope we haven't lost all of our loyal followers by our lack of posts. We promise to do better in the future. We have been very busy this summer traveling and keeping up with our ever busy toddler. Alex has certainly turned into a little man who knows what he wants. Now if he would only learn to use all the words I know he has stored in his brain that would be very helpful. Whenever he wants something and doesn't know how to articulate he signs the word more. Usually this is not very helpful but he does it anyways in hopes I will figure out what he wants.

Alex had a fabulous time with his grandparents while we were away. He spent a lot of time at the beach during the heatwave and was spoiled rotten. We know this because he was less than willing to listen to us when we got him back. It took about 3 days for him to realize that we are not as nice as his grandparents and yes, he has to listen to us.

Alaska

Here are a few pictures from our cruise to Alaska. It was great and the scenery was beautiful. Alex had a great time with his grandparents and we'll post some pictures of him shortly.

Toddler's

So we thought that Alex would be different than all of the toddler stereotypes. He's such a quiet kid and not crazy. He prefers to sit back and watch vs. cause havoc. I guess he changed his mind.

Alex now spends most of the day running around and yelling. He throws everything he can get his hands on and seems to really enjoy doing the things he knows he's not supposed to do (like trying to stick his fingers in power outlets). Yes, we already thought of covering the outlets, but he figured out how to take the covers off.

This weekend, Alex got his first skinned knee. He's definitely into toddlerhood now.

Alex and Ezra

We spent the weekend in Portland since my brother and family were in town. We haven't seen them in a while so it was great that Alex and Ezra had some quality time together. The size difference between the two has decreased dramatically. Above, Alex is in shell shock as his older cousins build a wall around him. He wasn't quite sure what to do with himself. Eventually he warmed up and had a great time.
Alex and Ezra below have assumed the position of hand in mouth (which is what they did the whole time during our family photo shoot). Trying to get two kids to simultaneously smile proved to be a challenge. It is just amazing to see how big they are getting. Pretty soon, college.

Boat Trip

Alex took his first boat trip a couple of weeks ago. He took a ferry to Kingston. No real reason other than it was a nice day. He loved the water and was fearless about getting close to the railings. He ran all over the boat laughing. He's definately embracing his toddlerhood. Alex has tons of energy and sometimes just runs around out of control. It's very cute though. His newest move is to walk on his top toes. He looks like a baby ballerina (or ballernino).

Cute pic of Alex before he left for the worksite.

Memorial Day Weekend

I've got lots of new pictures to add. We spent Memorial Day Weekend at Cannon Beach. The weather was really nice for a change so we got to spend a lot of time at the beach. Alex is all about walking now. He doesn't really crawl much anymore. His other favorite activity is to throw things. He's got a pretty impressive arm for an 18 month old. He's better with his right hand, but he also throws lefty. His grandpa (Saba) was pretty impressed with his skills after Alex hit him in the chest with a ball from a pretty good distance.

We've been dogsitting Oden who's an English Bulldog for our friends who are in Iceland. Alex loves Oden and thinks he's hilarious. He follows him around the house and pets him very gently.

During low tide at the beach, there are lots of cool critters to look at. Here, Alex was checking out different starfish.

Since it was one of the lowest tides of the year, Jess's dad and I went clam digging for razor clams (Action shot above). If you don't know what they are, razor clams are enormous clams that live in beaches along the West Coast. They are really tasty. After a brief lesson from a local on all of the things we were doing wrong, we caught about 20 clams, cleaned them (thanks You Tube for the lesson) and cooked them for dinner. They were really good.

To find the clams, you have to look for a small airhole in the ground and then dig down from it. One of the holes that Jess's dad found turned out to actually be a crab. We were a bit shocked when the pincher jumped out of the ground. Here's our friend. Unlike the clams, we set him free.

More Alex cuteness. Shortly after this, he discovered the ocean. He didn't care that the Pacific is cold in the NW and I had to drag him away from it. He is fearless. He just kept charging as fast as he could towards the water (laughing the whole time).